


A Quiet Conversation

by Rainne



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two old enemies sit and have coffee.</p><p>For the <i>Antique Roman</i> Ethan ficathon.<br/>Prompt by <span class="ljuser i-ljuser i-ljuser-deleted"></span><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://zandra-x.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://zandra-x.livejournal.com/"></a><b>zandra_x</b>, who asked for somebody you don't usually see with Ethan (not necessarily romantic), a book, a television and a radio.<br/>Beta reading by the lovely <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileswench/pseuds/Gileswench">Gileswench</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Conversation

When Buffy Summers came around the corner of York Road, turning onto Chicheley Street, the last thing she expected was to walk straight into someone and drop all her shopping bags. But she did, and her bags of shoes and books went everywhere, and he was kind enough to stop and help her gather her things, even as she apologized profusely for running him down and nearly knocking him off his feet.

Once she had all her things together, she stood and looked up into the face of her would-be victim, and nearly dropped all her bags again. “I thought you were in some government jail!” she exclaimed.

“I was,” Ethan Rayne responded, an expression of surprise on his face. “I, er, though you were dead.”

“I was,” she replied blandly, and was rewarded by a sardonic grin. “So what are you doing in London, seeing as how you’re all fugitive-y and stuff?”

“Honestly,” he replied, sounding exasperated, “as though the jails of people who don’t believe in magic could hold someone like me.”

“Point,” she conceded.

He reached out and touched her, as though checking to make sure she was actually there. “What are you doing in London, then,” he asked in return, only slightly mocking, “seeing as how you’re all dead and stuff?”

“Willow brought me back,” Buffy explained, four simple words that still, five years later, made her heart constrict with remembered pain. A strange, tingling warmth had taken over the place on her arm where he was touching her, and it made her both uncomfortable and slightly lightheaded.

“I see,” he said, and from the dark expression on his face, she wondered if he really did see. “Well I, since you asked, am simply here visiting old friends, dropping into old haunts, and generally taking a ramble down memory lane. You?”

“Working with Giles training the new Slayers. We’re running the Council now, and there’s Slayers everywhere.” Now why had she told him that?

“Really?” The darkness left his face, and he looked fascinated. “I’d heard rumors. Would you be willing to tell me any more?”

She frowned, looking at him suspiciously. “Are you going to do anything evil with what I tell you?”

He chuckled. “Haven’t you learned yet the difference between chaos and evil? But no, since you ask so charmingly, I will not use the knowledge to harm anyone. Here.” He took her elbow and steered her across Chicheley Road to a small coffee shop with an outdoor seating area. “Let’s have a coffee and natter, shall we?” Taking her hand, he tucked it under his elbow and led her gallantly across the street to a table.

Bemused, but unwilling to make a spectacle, Buffy sat where he directed her, arranging her bags near her feet and resting her elbows on the table. She waited while he flagged down a waiter and ordered cappuccino for both of them, wondered what the hell she was doing and briefly considered calling Giles to tell him she was having coffee with his old nemesis. Somehow it just didn’t seem important – especially when Ethan sat down again, his fingertips brushing her own, and smiled in that ingratiating way – and she ultimately threw caution to the wind and sipped at the coffee when it came. They were silent for a time, and her eyes kept flicking from him to the television in the shop window across the street and back to him, somewhat nervously.

“So, what have you been up to?” she asked when the silence had stretched too long.

He smiled slightly. “A bit of this, a bit of that. I’ve been in Majorca the past six months, visiting my sister and her husband. They’ve just spawned again, so I was obliged to do the ritual kissing-of-the-forehead. Before that I was in Venice, and before that, China.”

“China? Really?” Buffy almost forgot who she was chatting with. “I’ve never been to China. What’s it like?”

“Crowded and poor, and positively seething with civil unrest and vampires. You should have Ripper send you there sometime. Might do both you and China some good.”

Buffy made a mental note to have Giles check out this obviously questionable report. “I’ll tell Giles.” She took another sip of her drink. “How did you get out of jail?”

Ethan laughed. “Magic, of course. Don’t mistake me for some action movie hero. Speaking of magic, by the way, where is your friend Willow these days?”

“Devon,” Buffy replied, “working with some coven Giles knows.”

Ethan nodded sagely, his fingers still stroking hers. The tingling had climbed up her arm, but she didn’t notice it now, so enraptured was she by his mesmerizing eyes. “A good place for her. Might help her get over these mad impulses she has toward ending the world.”

Buffy was surprised. “You heard about that?”

“My dear girl, the very rocks of the earth trembled with her intent. I would imagine anyone with even a shred of mysticism in them was running for cover that day, and most of them not even knowing why. Yes, I heard about that. Your friend is very lucky she isn’t dead.”

Buffy sighed. “I know. Giles said how dangerous it was, the stuff he did to stop her. He almost died, too.”

“I’m well aware of that, but I’m not discussing what Ripper did. I’m talking about the fact that as sorry as this world is, most of the beings in it, of good, chaotic or evil natures, don’t actively want to see it ended. Your friend is lucky no one’s killed her to stop her doing it again. I’d imagine the only thing protecting her right now is the fact that she is safe in that coven.” His eyes narrowed. “You might pass on a message to her from me that she needs to watch what she dabbles in from here on. The world won’t be as forgiving in future.”

Buffy shivered slightly at the veiled menace in Ethan’s words, but couldn’t deny their truth: Willow was lucky. Giles had told Buffy recently, in the strictest confidence, that Willow’s actions that year – from raising Buffy to mindwiping Tara to trying to end the world – could have had the young witch up in front of a mystical tribunal. Buffy wondered if Willow knew.

Ethan smoothly changed the subject, toying with her fingers. “So you were saying about Slayers?”

“Oh, yeah.” Buffy took another sip of her coffee. The words tumbled out of her, uncensored, and she wondered again why she was confiding all this information to Ethan Rayne. Then his eyes were looking deeply into hers, and it didn’t seem important any more. She could trust Ethan. He’d promised, after all. Everything would be just fine. “Well, we did a spell, about four years ago. Well, Willow did it, really. And we changed the nature of the Slayer line. So now, instead of there just being one girl in all the world, when girls who are Potentials hit puberty they automatically get Called. So now there’s hundreds of us.”

“Really!” Ethan looked fascinated. “Hundreds?”

“Well, we’ve started an academy not far from here. Not actually in London, but close. And we have an enrollment of over three hundred. And there’s some girls who wouldn’t or couldn’t come. We’re sending Watchers to them as fast as we can train them.”

“Ah, yes,” Ethan murmured, “I’d heard about the attack on the Compound. No survivors?”

“Very few,” Buffy explained. “The survivors were ones who were away at the time. We started out with fiftyish; now there’s around a hundred and fifty. And we always need more; there’s never enough of anyone to go around.”

“And how’s old Ripper faring through all this?” Ethan asked curiously.

Buffy smiled slightly. “He’s doing great. He loves it. He gets to help all the girls, and train the Watchers to be the kind of Watcher he is, instead of a Council-type robo-Watcher. And the girls all love him.”

“Is he seeing anyone?” Ethan asked as casually as possible.

“Yes,” Buffy replied, a brilliant smile sliding onto her face. “Me.” She flashed her left hand at him: she was wearing an obscenely large but tastefully designed engagement ring.

“Of course. Congratulations.” Ethan’s hand tightened around Buffy’s almost painfully for one second, then he gave her his best smile. Then he stood, his fingers flicking idly. “Well, I must be off. It’s been simply scrumptious to see you again, love. Do give old Ripper my best, won’t you?”

He turned away, melting into the crowd, and Buffy sipped at her coffee again, idly wondering who it was that she’d just had coffee with, feeling that the face swam just outside of her recollection, but for some reason – probably because the coffee was just so good – she didn’t really care who it was or why she couldn’t seem to remember. It just wasn’t important.

Not, at least, until the next morning, when the clock radio woke her. She rolled out of bed and stomped into the bathroom to confront a Fyarl demon in her mirror. As her eyes widened in horror, the entire conversation returned to her memory. “I’m gonna kill him,” she snarled, the words coming out in the guttural Fyarl tongue. “Oh, jeez, Giles, I hope you still remember how to speak Fyarl.”

\--End--


End file.
